There must have been times when I justly was accused of having no “class”.  I can be rude, crude and moody.   However, I never really concerned myself with a  social or economic class since I mostly had the good fortune to be gifted with good providers as parents and a family that demonstrated how one should live and take what comes without a lot of histrionics or fuss-making. Basically, I had it good but I always thought of myself as belonging to the WORKING CLASS. I like to work with my hands and was not afraid to take on jobs where I had to get my back into it although today my back hurts just from polishing my shoes (maybe polished shoes are a sign that shows what class I belong to).

The MIDDLE class seems to be the concern of the nation today.  Everybody gave up on the LOWER class a long time ago for they seemed not to care very much how they looked, if they were hungry, had no roof over their heads, worked at the lowest of low jobs or accepted charity.  So, since I considered myself a member of the WORKING CLASS, I was a cut above the lower and lowest classes because I had things.  I was a teacher and that counted for a lot – at one time.  Since the BLACKBOARD JUNGLE came out it seemed that Mr. Chips and Miss Brooks were cardboard figures who were symbolic of mostly harmless people who had to deal with basically good children who never brought guns to school or beat their classmates unconscious as reported in the papers recently.  Carol and I could be classified as professionals but not upper-class professionals.  These looked down on the teaching profession even though I had become a “Professor”.

This “Class” thing is something that occupies the reading public.  It does not affect nor upset the UPPER CLASS or higher classes than the Middle Class for they had gotten theirs a long time ago and they perform all kinds of spells and curses to assure they keep theirs.  I don’t need to live in more than one house although there was a time when Carol and I had something that resembled four houses (five if you included Lady Lil’s pad where we could crash).  Carol had her house in Livingston, I had mine (luckily retained after a nasty divorce) in Long Branch, our trailer and in the summers the housing provided Carol as the Director of the Girl’s camp in Camp Scatico in Elizaville, New York.

Then, too, we are fortunate enough to have the wherewithal to be taking another cruise and will live on a Celebrity Line ship, beginning this Friday for ten days.  That puts us in a decidedly Upper class.  But we must be of a Middle class because we are down to owning one apartment and are able to eat out a lot.

But – enough about class: we will be away for those ten days and I am suspending writing about our position in the world while we take that cruise.